


the universe loves to eat itself

by quixoti



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blood, Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Carlos rambles about science, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Needles, POC!Cecil, Set after Condos but before Visitor, Strexcorp, Swearing, Tattooed!Cecil, but they're just normal tattoos, mentions of smoking, probably happens right before Visitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 05:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1846897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixoti/pseuds/quixoti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All at once, the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the universe loves to eat itself

         Night Vale cacti had organized together, formed a union, and decided to take time off from continued existence this week. They began phasing in and out of existence, popping up where they felt like it and leaving as mysteriously and unsettlingly as they came. Old Woman Josie was annoyed by this, seeing as how a cactus had appeared in a birthday cake her and the angels had been baking for Tamika Flynn, and had repeatedly called Cecil with complaints, asking if Carlos could maybe look into the whole teleporting cactus deal and also if he would like a cake full of spikes. Cecil had politely turned down the offer for the cake, but still asked Carlos to at least go study the cactuses.

            He’d driven to the scrublands outside of town to study the cacti. The sunset was beginning to drape itself over the desert when he arrived, lighting everything in gentle reds and oranges as Carlos worked. He took notes with his audio recorder and monitored the frequency at which the cactuses faded in and out. Honestly, in a town where television sets were more likely to ooze black sludge than play the news and carrots had the tendency to emotionally abuse you before you ate them, Carlos did not think cactuses on strike were of high priority. They weren’t hurting anything but baked goods, and Carlos wondered if he might convince them to let _him_ do the whole phasing-out-of-existence for a week or so, but it was better than staring at the seismology graph and ripping out his hair or dissembling more clocks, he supposed. Also, Cecil had asked him to, and Carlos had a horrid time saying no to Cecil.

            He worked quietly, stopping to murmur things occasionally into his voice recorder, prodding any cactus that wandered close enough.  He texted Dr. Ershova (one of the more helpful botanists at the community college, who also possessed vocal chords and was willing to communicate with Carlos in English instead of shrieking at him in Modified Sumerian or Russian) occasionally about his findings. It was one of the more peaceful afternoons he’d had since bringing his team to Night Vale, and after an hour with no new breakthroughs, he put down his instruments and started watching the sunset. It was beautiful, and had been going on for like three hours now—one of those reluctant sunsets Cecil was always muttering about—and Carlos watched clouds drift lazily by and slipped, content, into his own thoughts.

            “You shouldn’t make unreciprocated eye contact with the void for so long, Carlos, did you not hear the weather today,” and there it was, Carlos’s favorite voice, creeping into his thoughts and snapping him out of his reverie. Cecil was using a toned-down version of his radio voice, because he knew Carlos liked that, and Carlos had never felt so at home anywhere else.

            “Sorry, Cecil, I missed the broadcast today,” he said guiltily, when he realized Cecil must be done with the show. “The sunset has been happening since 4 p.m. and I kind of lost track of time. I’ll listen to the re-run at midnight, I promise.” He gathered the last of his instruments, turned around to meet his boyfriend, and then froze.

            Cecil had an odd expression on his face, lips twisted into a grimace that was attempting (but failing) to masquerade as a smile, usually shiny eyes dull and unfocused. His long black hair, pulled back into a careful, neat braid as he usually wore it, was messy and flyaway, like Cecil had been in a hurry. Carlos shifted uncomfortably, immediately cataloguing anything he could have done to make Cecil look so unhappy (did he forget another date?), and then a repetitive motion in the corner of his peripheral vision caught his attention. He turned to see it, and it was—it was blood. Rolling down Cecil’s arm and collecting on the ground.

            Given that nearly every month there was some sort of nonsensical-yet-horrifying minor apocalyptic catastrophe that resulted in a staggering death count, Carlos had resigned himself to blood being a part of life in Night Vale. He certainly didn’t like it—it was one reason he never wanted to be a doctor—but he was hardly fazed by minor injuries anymore. He just bandaged them up to the best of his ability, occasionally putting in some shaky, unskilled stitches if he had to, and moved on. But this was different, because this was _Cecil,_ who Carlos had never seen sick with anything but Lyme disease over a year ago, and he was bleeding enough for it to be _pooling_ on the _sand_.

            “Jesus, Cecil, you’re bleeding,” he breathed, moving closer to his boyfriend, who was still watching him with dull eyes. “Are you—are you okay, _shit,_ Cee _,_ you’re really bleeding, we gotta get you to a doctor,” and Cecil huffed out an approximation of a laugh.

            “This fact has not escaped my attention,” and it was just like Cecil to play it off with blithe sarcasm. Cecil tended to do that when he was scared.

            Carlos swallowed his instinct to ask what the hell was going on and instead held out a shaky arm. “Can I see it, Cecil, please?” and for as much as Carlos couldn’t refuse Cecil, Cecil seemed to be physically incapable of telling Carlos no when he asked nicely, so he stuck out his arm, however unwillingly.

            Cecil was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt, like he usually wore to work when he had no interviews—one of Carlos’s shirts, he realized, noticing the cartoonish T- Rex on the front—and Carlos flipped Cecil’s arm over gently to determine where are the blood was coming from, and gasped.

            Cecil’s dark skin was drenched in blood. It was dripping steadily from a deep gash that extended under the sleeve of his shirt down to the top of his elbow, where his tattoos started. This wasn’t a by-product of Cecil being generally klutzy and tripping into his desk or something, which happened more frequently than Cecil would ever admit. Someone—or some _thing_ , Carlos reminded himself, this was Night Vale, inflicted this with malicious intent. Someone did this to Cecil on _purpose_. Cecil’s unsettlingly dull eyes were still on Carlos’s face and Carlos tried to reign in his terror, to put on a calm expression for Cecil’s sake.

            “Cecil…who did this to you,” breathed Carlos, and looked up just in time to see Cecil hesitate, like he was debating whether to tell, and then quickly mouth “Stex” silently and then look around the desert to make sure they were alone.

            No wonder Cecil was scared.

            Carlos swallowed and put his hand on Cecil’s face, rubbing his thumb in soothing circles against Cecil’s freckles. “Okay, okay,” he said, mostly to himself. The key to managing stressful situations was to communicate clearly. “Here,” he said, stepping back and taking off his lab coat and handing it to Cecil. “Wrap this around it and hold it down to stop some of the blood flow. My car isn’t far from here, I’ll go get it and come get you and then we can go home. I’ve got you, Cecil.” Although every bone in his body was screaming at him to take Cecil to the hospital, he knew that if Strex did this, it wasn’t safe. They had eyes and ears everywhere.

            He watched Cecil wrap the lab coat around his wound, with an efficiency that slightly disturbed Carlos. “Is that okay, Cecil?” He suspected Cecil was going into shock, and wanted to make sure he was still responsive.

            “Please—please don’t leave me here alone,” Cecil said in a shaky, rushed whisper, and Carlos was suddenly alight with anger. How dare StrexCorp do this to Night Vale. How _dare_ they do this to Cecil.

            “Okay, okay,” he said again. He wrapped his arm around Cecil’s shoulders. Cecil was taller than him, but had the unique ability to make himself shrink down, like a child. “Lean against me, you lost a lot of blood. C’mon, Cee.”

            Carlos got them to the car, although he couldn’t recall how. He just remembers murmuring vaguely comforting things at Cecil, struck by how _weird_ it was that Carlos was using words to comfort Cecil. Carlos, who was a royal ass at speaking on the phone, and got his intentions lost in poor language more often than not, was speaking in hushed gentle tones to someone who was scared.

            Maybe Cecil had changed him more than he’d realized.

            The drive was tense. Cecil didn’t say anything, which was, in and of itself, terrifying. Cecil was always talking, or gesticulating, or humming, or at least moving. Cecil was a force in motion, always taking up space, but in the car he just pressed his good shoulder up against Carlos and occasionally made small pained grunts. Carlos kept up the incessant mumbling, knuckles white on the steering wheel, because he had to fill the little car with something or else he’d scream and go hunt down the nearest Strex employee. Carlos was not a man of violence, prided himself on this fact, but then, nothing had ever been quite as important to him as Cecil.

            He threw the car into park as soon as they hit the lot of their apartment complex and hurried to get Cecil out and inside. He could park normally later; if the SSP wanted to give him a parking ticket, so be it. Thankfully their apartment was on the second floor, so only one flight of stairs to navigate, and he deposited Cecil carefully on the paisley purple couch (it had been in Cecil’s old apartment, and Carlos thought his boyfriend’s style of decorating was charming and only slightly tacky) and rushed to the bathroom to pull out the first aid kit. “Do you need anything, Cecil?” he called, worried, and Cecil’s voice came back, small and soft, so much unlike his radio persona, “A glass of water would be very nice,” and Carlos shook with relief that at least Cecil was still talking.

            When he got back into the living room with the glass of water and the kit, Cecil was in the exact same position Carlos had left him, staring fixedly at nothing. Carlos set the glass gently on the coffee table and smoothed back Cecil’s flyaway hairs. “Okay, Cecil, I’m not a doctor, I’m a scientist.” Cecil smiled at him, however shakily, and Carlos was relieved. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to wipe the blood away from your wound, and put some antiseptic on it. It might burn for a little bit, okay? And that’s deep, so you’re going to need stitches. One of the scientists on my team taught me how to do that, but that’s going to hurt a lot. Are you sure you want me to do this?”

            Cecil made a snuffling sound. He started to speak. “One, I earned my Emergency Medic badge when I was like, 7, and helped Earl Harlan qualify for his the next year. Have you ever had an 8 year old give you stitches? I’m still drinking to forget that one. Also, I trust you, dear Carlos. And I _do not trust_ the hospital right now.” His voice was still small and soft, but he started to sound more like himself.

            It was the most Cecil had said at all since meeting him in the scrublands, and he even used the same infliction on the “do not trust” as he did when he was speaking of mountains or Steve Carlsberg. Carlos’s panic level decreased slightly.

            “Do you want some Tylenol or something before we start? It won’t thin your blood, so it’s safe to take, and will probably make this whole process more pleasant.”

            “I don’t keep Tylenol, not after that time it ate through my cabinet doors,” said Cecil. Carlos mentally noted to test his medicine sometime. “I’ll be fine, but I appreciate your concern, beautiful Carlos,” and that’s how Carlos knew he’d _really_ be okay, now that he was back to using his ridiculous pet names.

            Carlos kissed his forehead, knelt down, and started to work.

            As he busied himself patching up his boyfriend, their home was mostly silent. The refrigerator hummed, and he could hear the Faceless Old Woman hovering curiously nearby, and Cecil made the occasional sound. Carlos tried to focus himself on the task at hand, and not ask questions—he wasn’t the one getting impromptu home stitches after all, and the SSP was probably listening, but he couldn’t help it. He had to know. Cecil was adept at acting like a model citizen, even under StrexCorp. Despite his tendency to get snarky on the radio, he never showed any other sign of ill will toward any government agency in Night Vale in public. Carlos knew that Cecil felt differently, but only in a limited capacity. It was hard to talk about secret harborings against totalitarian governments when that totalitarian government was monitoring you at all time. Finally, he broke down and asked. “Cecil…why did they _do_ this to you,” and Cecil made that peculiar huffing noise again and cleared his throat.

            “Lauren and I were having a civil, even friendly, discussion on the origins of Khoshekh and housecats in general. I may have mentioned that you were allergic to cats,” he muttered blithely, and Carlos flushed; Cecil’s habit of bringing him up in every conversation was totally endearing but slightly embarrassing, “and she may have started to…ask questions about my favorite scientist. Inquiries into your normal schedule and places she might be able to find you to _chat_ with you. Because StrexCorp,” Cecil paused, squeezing his eyes shut, although Carlos could not determine if he was squashing some irate tirade about StrexCorp or if he was hurting because of the stiches, “has an interest in you. Personally. Personal interests about Carlos and his levels of productivity. And I may have told her where she could shove her personal interests, and she may have sent someone after me in the break room. A someone with very sharp claws and a smile full of sharp teeth wearing a cheery yellow sweatshirt. But then again, nothing is real, certainly not tyrannical government entities and definitely not pain, so who really knows.”

            And Carlos knew he was using his ability to speak poetic nonsense as a diversion, but Carlos couldn’t help being comforted because it was so _Cecil._ And then it hit him, like gravity hits you, something that’s been there all along but you only notice when you start to feel its effects, that Cecil was injured. On behalf of _Carlos_. That he told that creepy black-eyed woman to screw off because she was vaguely threatening Carlos.

            “This is my fault,” he breathed in horror. “Cecil, you shouldn’t have made her mad, you should have just let her come talk to me. You didn’t have to get _hurt_ ,” and Cecil is staring at him with those weirdly dull eyes, and then he laughs. Actually laughs, like a full belly laugh, like Carlos just told the funniest joke he’s ever heard, and then he’s sighing and rubbing at his arm and saying something that sounds suspiciously like “fuck”. Carlos is, not for the first time, completely confused and upset. He wills his hands to stop shaking and continues stitching.

            “Carlos, perfect Carlos,” says Cecil, sighing. And then, “I want a cigarette.”

            “Cecil, you don’t smoke,” Carlos reminds him. This is a bizarre non sequitur, but not the weirdest thing that’s ever come out of Cecil’s mouth. “At least I’ve never seen you smoke, and seeing as how we live in the same house, I think even I would notice something like that.”

            “I used to, when I was young and believed in the moon,” says Cecil, and he says it so sincerely Carlos almost wants to laugh. He wants to jump into another long discussion about the fact that the moon really exists, and science really does know what it’s doing up there, and it’s probably not watching you. But he doesn’t, because there’s something going on here; Cecil is hurt, and deflecting, and babbling, and Carlos is afraid of what lurks underneath this fragile front. Cecil is a modern wonder of the world, and faceted like a precious shining diamond. He can be ridiculous and silly and the biggest dork on earth but he can also be completely terrifying and fearless in the span of two breaths and so Carlos just lets him go, lets his words spill out over their living room, beautiful and nonsensical all at once. “People told me it was a bad move, given that my voice is my most precious asset and simultaneously my livelihood, but I was quick to point out that if Night Vale was on any sort of official lists we’d have the highest death rate in the United States, so what’s a little lung cancer, right? What are a few years off your life when you’re lucky to live to forty anyway?” Cecil stops, as if he’s just made a point, but Carlos doesn’t see it. He really doesn’t.

            “I want a cigarette,” says Cecil again, more plaintively this time, and Carlos threads the last stitch through and suddenly gets it, like a scientific theory clicking into place, and he’s back to full panic mode.

            “Cecil, you can’t go throwing yourself at danger like this,” he says, staring hard at his boyfriend, an inch of hysteria creeping in. He stops worrying about the secret police and just speaks. “Strex is terrifying and I don’t know what they’re planning; I’m a scientist, not a psychic, but you’re stronger than them. Night Vale listens to you. Hell, when I first got here, I thought maybe you were the mayor or something with all the power over the people you have. You can get to the citizens of Night Vale like no one, especially Strex, can.” He stops and he thinks about Cecil’s voice earlier, standing in the setting desert sun surrounded by lazy cacti, and he hears _please don’t leave me here_ _alone_ and it’s another goddamn scientific revelation, all at once. No one has ever been able to shake his foundations like Cecil.

            “Cecil, I’m not going to leave. I won’t let them take me,” and Cecil’s eyes are closed, but he moves his good arm over to touch Carlos’s body, and Cecil sighs slowly, like acceptance, like belief. “I promise,” says Carlos with all the conviction he can muster. “I won’t go down without a fight.”

            “Lovely Carlos,” says Cecil. A pause. “Forever is a long time,” and _oh._

            Carlos can talk about eternity. Carlos can most certainly do that.

            “Cee,” he says softly, entwining his fingers with Cecil’s, marveling at the swirl of their dark skin together, “there’s this idea about the creation of the universe. We know that everything we are, were, and will be was contained in a single point that began expanding, rapidly, and formed what we call the universe. This is called the Big Bang. But the question people are asking now is what was _before_ the big bang. What caused the dense, hot point of pressure to start expanding, and what caused everything to be contained into the single point in the first place? What made it possible for us to be here? Maybe we will never have a satisfactory answer; people supply their own with religion and other theories and speculation. One of my favorite speculations is that—well, do you know about entropy? The suggested fate of the universe is that once we have reached a state where there is no free thermodynamic energy, our universe will stop being able to sustain things that need energy. Such as life. Humans, or what comes after humans, will all go with the heat death of the universe.”

 “But some people think that maybe our Big Bang was just the death of another universe. Another place where other things existed and lived; do you get what I’m trying to say? Forever means different things to lots of people. Existence is the most exciting fact of all, Cecil, do you remember me telling you that? I think existence is so exciting because it is finite. The universe converged improbably and beautifully to cause me to exist and that I, an improbability, get to live is the whole _reason_ to live. We are statistical improbability in a town where cacti are taking the week off; Night Vale makes all these things seem irrelevant. But they aren’t.”

He paused for a breath. “I don’t like thinking about an afterlife because I want my improbability to _mean_ something. But Cecil, if that theory about the Big Bang is right, all the stardust that we are will explode again to make other things. The universe loves to eat itself but it won’t digest what we’re made of; it will recycle us. We won’t every really go away, just take on new forms, new shapes. But every me loves every you, Cecil, I—I say this to say I won’t leave you. Not for Strex, and not for entropy. I won’t leave you.”

            Maybe Carlos will regret making a promise he can’t 100% keep, but then Cecil is leaning down to him, being careful with his hurt arm, covering Carlos’s face with gentle kisses and saying “Carlos, perfect wonderful scientific Carlos,” and Strex is sticking its claws into every bit of Night Vale, trying to rip it up, but they won’t win. Strex is dangerous and Strex is everything but even they can’t take Cecil from him.

            Not now, not ever.

    

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the lack of adorable, dorky Cecil in this one. I like to think that while he is most certainly a giant nerd, he is also quite serious, harboring a fair amount of emotional baggage (what Night Vale citizen wouldn't), and isn't always the municipally-approved citizen he appears to be. After I see what goes down in Old Oak Doors Part B, I'll probably write a companion fic to this where Carlos is freaking out because, oh shit, they actually did separate him and Cecil.
> 
> If you're curious about what my Cecil looks like, [this](http://astrogyaru.tumblr.com/post/89536080404/a-sad-cecil-hes-wearing-this) is the closest thing I could find.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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